========================
Django 1.7 release notes
========================

*September 2, 2014*

Welcome to Django 1.7!

These release notes cover the :ref:`new features <whats-new-1.7>`, as well as
some :ref:`backwards incompatible changes <backwards-incompatible-1.7>` you'll
want to be aware of when upgrading from Django 1.6 or older versions. We've
:ref:`begun the deprecation process for some features
<deprecated-features-1.7>`, and some features have reached the end of their
deprecation process and :ref:`have been removed <removed-features-1.7>`.

Python compatibility
====================

Django 1.7 requires Python 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, or 3.4. We **highly recommend** and
only officially support the latest release of each series.

The Django 1.6 series is the last to support Python 2.6. Django 1.7 is the
first release to support Python 3.4.

This change should affect only a small number of Django users, as most
operating-system vendors today are shipping Python 2.7 or newer as their default
version. If you're still using Python 2.6, however, you'll need to stick to
Django 1.6 until you can upgrade your Python version. Per :doc:`our support
policy </internals/release-process>`, Django 1.6 will continue to receive
security support until the release of Django 1.8.

.. _whats-new-1.7:

What's new in Django 1.7
========================

Schema migrations
-----------------

Django now has built-in support for schema migrations. It allows models
to be updated, changed, and deleted by creating migration files that represent
the model changes and which can be run on any development, staging or production
database.

Migrations are covered in :doc:`their own documentation</topics/migrations>`,
but a few of the key features are:

* ``syncdb`` has been deprecated and replaced by ``migrate``. Don't worry -
  calls to ``syncdb`` will still work as before.

* A new ``makemigrations`` command provides an easy way to autodetect changes
  to your models and make migrations for them.

  ``django.db.models.signals.pre_syncdb`` and
  ``django.db.models.signals.post_syncdb`` have been deprecated,
  to be replaced by :data:`~django.db.models.signals.pre_migrate` and
  :data:`~django.db.models.signals.post_migrate` respectively. These
  new signals have slightly different arguments. Check the
  documentation for details.

* The ``allow_syncdb`` method on database routers is now called ``allow_migrate``,
  but still performs the same function. Routers with ``allow_syncdb`` methods
  will still work, but that method name is deprecated and you should change
  it as soon as possible (nothing more than renaming is required).

* ``initial_data`` fixtures are no longer loaded for apps with migrations; if
  you want to load initial data for an app, we suggest you create a migration for
  your application and define a :class:`~django.db.migrations.operations.RunPython`
  or :class:`~django.db.migrations.operations.RunSQL` operation in the ``operations`` section of the migration.

* Test rollback behavior is different for apps with migrations; in particular,
  Django will no longer emulate rollbacks on non-transactional databases or
  inside ``TransactionTestCase`` :ref:`unless specifically requested
  <test-case-serialized-rollback>`.

* It is not advised to have apps without migrations depend on (have a
  :class:`~django.db.models.ForeignKey` or
  :class:`~django.db.models.ManyToManyField` to) apps with migrations.

.. _app-loading-refactor-17-release-note:

App-loading refactor
--------------------

Historically, Django applications were tightly linked to models. A singleton
known as the "app cache" dealt with both installed applications and models.
The models module was used as an identifier for applications in many APIs.

As the concept of :doc:`Django applications </ref/applications>` matured, this
code showed some shortcomings. It has been refactored into an "app registry"
where models modules no longer have a central role and where it's possible to
attach configuration data to applications.

Improvements thus far include:

* Applications can run code at startup, before Django does anything else, with
  the :meth:`~django.apps.AppConfig.ready` method of their configuration.

* Application labels are assigned correctly to models even when they're
  defined outside of ``models.py``. You don't have to set
  :attr:`~django.db.models.Options.app_label` explicitly any more.

* It is possible to omit ``models.py`` entirely if an application doesn't
  have any models.

* Applications can be relabeled with the :attr:`~django.apps.AppConfig.label`
  attribute of application configurations, to work around label conflicts.

* The name of applications can be customized in the admin with the
  :attr:`~django.apps.AppConfig.verbose_name` of application configurations.

* The admin automatically calls :func:`~django.contrib.admin.autodiscover()`
  when Django starts. You can consequently remove this line from your
  URLconf.

* Django imports all application configurations and models as soon as it
  starts, through a deterministic and straightforward process. This should
  make it easier to diagnose import issues such as import loops.

New method on Field subclasses
------------------------------

To help power both schema migrations and to enable easier addition of
composite keys in future releases of Django, the
:class:`~django.db.models.Field` API now has a new required method:
``deconstruct()``.

This method takes no arguments, and returns a tuple of four items:

* ``name``: The field's attribute name on its parent model, or None if it is not part of a model
* ``path``: A dotted, Python path to the class of this field, including the class name.
* ``args``: Positional arguments, as a list
* ``kwargs``: Keyword arguments, as a dict

These four values allow any field to be serialized into a file, as well as
allowing the field to be copied safely, both essential parts of these new features.

This change should not affect you unless you write custom Field subclasses;
if you do, you may need to reimplement the ``deconstruct()`` method if your
subclass changes the method signature of ``__init__`` in any way. If your
field just inherits from a built-in Django field and doesn't override ``__init__``,
no changes are necessary.

If you do need to override ``deconstruct()``, a good place to start is the
built-in Django fields (``django/db/models/fields/__init__.py``) as several
fields, including ``DecimalField`` and ``DateField``, override it and show how
to call the method on the superclass and simply add or remove extra arguments.

This also means that all arguments to fields must themselves be serializable;
to see what we consider serializable, and to find out how to make your own
classes serializable, read the
:ref:`migration serialization documentation <migration-serializing>`.

Calling custom ``QuerySet`` methods from the ``Manager``
--------------------------------------------------------

Historically, the recommended way to make reusable model queries was to create
methods on a custom ``Manager`` class. The problem with this approach was that
after the first method call, you'd get back a ``QuerySet`` instance and
couldn't call additional custom manager methods.

Though not documented, it was common to work around this issue by creating a
custom ``QuerySet`` so that custom methods could be chained; but the solution
had a number of drawbacks:

* The custom ``QuerySet`` and its custom methods were lost after the first
  call to ``values()`` or ``values_list()``.

* Writing a custom ``Manager`` was still necessary to return the custom
  ``QuerySet`` class and all methods that were desired on the ``Manager``
  had to be proxied to the ``QuerySet``. The whole process went against
  the DRY principle.

The :meth:`QuerySet.as_manager() <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.as_manager>`
class method can now directly :ref:`create Manager with QuerySet methods
<create-manager-with-queryset-methods>`::

    class FoodQuerySet(models.QuerySet):
        def pizzas(self):
            return self.filter(kind='pizza')

        def vegetarian(self):
            return self.filter(vegetarian=True)

    class Food(models.Model):
        kind = models.CharField(max_length=50)
        vegetarian = models.BooleanField(default=False)
        objects = FoodQuerySet.as_manager()

    Food.objects.pizzas().vegetarian()

Using a custom manager when traversing reverse relations
--------------------------------------------------------

It is now possible to :ref:`specify a custom manager
<using-custom-reverse-manager>` when traversing a reverse relationship::

    class Blog(models.Model):
        pass

    class Entry(models.Model):
        blog = models.ForeignKey(Blog)

        objects = models.Manager()  # Default Manager
        entries = EntryManager()    # Custom Manager

    b = Blog.objects.get(id=1)
    b.entry_set(manager='entries').all()

New system check framework
--------------------------

We've added a new :doc:`System check framework </ref/checks>` for
detecting common problems (like invalid models) and providing hints for
resolving those problems. The framework is extensible so you can add your
own checks for your own apps and libraries.

To perform system checks, you use the :djadmin:`check` management command.
This command replaces the older ``validate`` management command.

New ``Prefetch`` object for advanced ``prefetch_related`` operations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The new :class:`~django.db.models.Prefetch` object allows customizing
prefetch operations.

You can specify the ``QuerySet`` used to traverse a given relation
or customize the storage location of prefetch results.

This enables things like filtering prefetched relations, calling
:meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.select_related()` from a prefetched
relation, or prefetching the same relation multiple times with different
querysets. See :meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.prefetch_related()`
for more details.

Admin shortcuts support time zones
----------------------------------

The "today" and "now" shortcuts next to date and time input widgets in the
admin are now operating in the :ref:`current time zone
<default-current-time-zone>`. Previously, they used the browser time zone,
which could result in saving the wrong value when it didn't match the current
time zone on the server.

In addition, the widgets now display a help message when the browser and
server time zone are different, to clarify how the value inserted in the field
will be interpreted.

Using database cursors as context managers
------------------------------------------

Prior to Python 2.7, database cursors could be used as a context manager. The
specific backend's cursor defined the behavior of the context manager. The
behavior of magic method lookups was changed with Python 2.7 and cursors were
no longer usable as context managers.

Django 1.7 allows a cursor to be used as a context manager. That is,
the following can be used::

    with connection.cursor() as c:
        c.execute(...)

instead of::

    c = connection.cursor()
    try:
        c.execute(...)
    finally:
        c.close()

Custom lookups
--------------

It is now possible to write custom lookups and transforms for the ORM.
Custom lookups work just like Django's built-in lookups (e.g. ``lte``,
``icontains``) while transforms are a new concept.

The :class:`django.db.models.Lookup` class provides a way to add lookup
operators for model fields. As an example it is possible to add ``day_lte``
operator for ``DateFields``.

The :class:`django.db.models.Transform` class allows transformations of
database values prior to the final lookup. For example it is possible to
write a ``year`` transform that extracts year from the field's value.
Transforms allow for chaining. After the ``year`` transform has been added
to ``DateField`` it is possible to filter on the transformed value, for
example ``qs.filter(author__birthdate__year__lte=1981)``.

For more information about both custom lookups and transforms refer to
the :doc:`custom lookups </howto/custom-lookups>` documentation.

Improvements to ``Form`` error handling
---------------------------------------

``Form.add_error()``
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Previously there were two main patterns for handling errors in forms:

* Raising a :exc:`~django.core.exceptions.ValidationError` from within certain
  functions (e.g. ``Field.clean()``, ``Form.clean_<fieldname>()``, or
  ``Form.clean()`` for non-field errors.)

* Fiddling with ``Form._errors`` when targeting a specific field in
  ``Form.clean()`` or adding errors from outside of a "clean" method
  (e.g. directly from a view).

Using the former pattern was straightforward since the form can guess from the
context (i.e. which method raised the exception) where the errors belong and
automatically process them. This remains the canonical way of adding errors
when possible. However the latter was fiddly and error-prone, since the burden
of handling edge cases fell on the user.

The new :meth:`~django.forms.Form.add_error()` method allows adding errors
to specific form fields from anywhere without having to worry about the details
such as creating instances of ``django.forms.utils.ErrorList`` or dealing with
``Form.cleaned_data``. This new API replaces manipulating ``Form._errors``
which now becomes a private API.

See :ref:`validating-fields-with-clean` for an example using
``Form.add_error()``.

Error metadata
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The :exc:`~django.core.exceptions.ValidationError` constructor accepts metadata
such as error ``code`` or ``params`` which are then available for interpolating
into the error message (see :ref:`raising-validation-error` for more details);
however, before Django 1.7 those metadata were discarded as soon as the errors
were added to :attr:`Form.errors <django.forms.Form.errors>`.

:attr:`Form.errors <django.forms.Form.errors>` and
``django.forms.utils.ErrorList`` now store the ``ValidationError`` instances
so these metadata can be retrieved at any time through the new
:meth:`Form.errors.as_data <django.forms.Form.errors.as_data()>` method.

The retrieved ``ValidationError`` instances can then be identified thanks to
their error ``code`` which enables things like rewriting the error's message
or writing custom logic in a view when a given error is present. It can also
be used to serialize the errors in a custom format such as XML.

The new :meth:`Form.errors.as_json() <django.forms.Form.errors.as_json()>`
method is a convenience method which returns error messages along with error
codes serialized as JSON. ``as_json()`` uses ``as_data()`` and gives an idea
of how the new system could be extended.

Error containers and backward compatibility
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heavy changes to the various error containers were necessary in order
to support the features above, specifically
:attr:`Form.errors <django.forms.Form.errors>`,
``django.forms.utils.ErrorList``, and the internal storages of
:exc:`~django.core.exceptions.ValidationError`. These containers which used
to store error strings now store ``ValidationError`` instances and public APIs
have been adapted to make this as transparent as possible, but if you've been
using private APIs, some of the changes are backwards incompatible; see
:ref:`validation-error-constructor-and-internal-storage` for more details.

Minor features
--------------

:mod:`django.contrib.admin`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* You can now implement :attr:`~django.contrib.admin.AdminSite.site_header`,
  :attr:`~django.contrib.admin.AdminSite.site_title`, and
  :attr:`~django.contrib.admin.AdminSite.index_title` attributes on a custom
  :class:`~django.contrib.admin.AdminSite` in order to easily change the admin
  site's page title and header text. No more needing to override templates!

* Buttons in :mod:`django.contrib.admin` now use the ``border-radius`` CSS
  property for rounded corners rather than GIF background images.

* Some admin templates now have ``app-<app_name>`` and ``model-<model_name>``
  classes in their ``<body>`` tag to allow customizing the CSS per app or per
  model.

* The admin changelist cells now have a ``field-<field_name>`` class in the
  HTML to enable style customizations.

* The admin's search fields can now be customized per-request thanks to the new
  :meth:`django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.get_search_fields` method.

* The :meth:`ModelAdmin.get_fields()
  <django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.get_fields>` method may be overridden to
  customize the value of :attr:`ModelAdmin.fields
  <django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.fields>`.

* In addition to the existing ``admin.site.register`` syntax, you can use the
  new :func:`~django.contrib.admin.register` decorator to register a
  :class:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin`.

* You may specify :meth:`ModelAdmin.list_display_links
  <django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.list_display_links>` ``= None`` to disable
  links on the change list page grid.

* You may now specify :attr:`ModelAdmin.view_on_site
  <django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.view_on_site>` to control whether or not to
  display the "View on site" link.

* You can specify a descending ordering for a :attr:`ModelAdmin.list_display
  <django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.list_display>` value by prefixing the
  ``admin_order_field`` value with a hyphen.

* The :meth:`ModelAdmin.get_changeform_initial_data()
  <django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.get_changeform_initial_data>` method may be
  overridden to define custom behavior for setting initial change form data.

:mod:`django.contrib.auth`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Any ``**kwargs`` passed to
  :meth:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User.email_user()` are passed to the
  underlying :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mail()` call.

* The :func:`~django.contrib.auth.decorators.permission_required` decorator can
  take a list of permissions as well as a single permission.

* You can override the new :meth:`AuthenticationForm.confirm_login_allowed()
  <django.contrib.auth.forms.AuthenticationForm.confirm_login_allowed>` method
  to more easily customize the login policy.

* :func:`django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset` takes an optional
  ``html_email_template_name`` parameter used to send a multipart HTML email
  for password resets.

* The :meth:`AbstractBaseUser.get_session_auth_hash()
  <django.contrib.auth.models.AbstractBaseUser.get_session_auth_hash>`
  method was added and if your :setting:`AUTH_USER_MODEL` inherits from
  :class:`~django.contrib.auth.models.AbstractBaseUser`, changing a user's
  password now invalidates old sessions if the
  ``django.contrib.auth.middleware.SessionAuthenticationMiddleware`` is
  enabled. See :ref:`session-invalidation-on-password-change` for more details.

``django.contrib.formtools``
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Calls to ``WizardView.done()`` now include a ``form_dict`` to allow easier
  access to forms by their step name.

:mod:`django.contrib.gis`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The default OpenLayers library version included in widgets has been updated
  from 2.11 to 2.13.

* Prepared geometries now also support the ``crosses``, ``disjoint``,
  ``overlaps``, ``touches`` and ``within`` predicates, if GEOS 3.3 or later is
  installed.

:mod:`django.contrib.messages`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The backends for :mod:`django.contrib.messages` that use cookies, will now
  follow the :setting:`SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE` and
  :setting:`SESSION_COOKIE_HTTPONLY` settings.

* The :ref:`messages context processor <message-displaying>` now adds a
  dictionary of default levels under the name ``DEFAULT_MESSAGE_LEVELS``.

* :class:`~django.contrib.messages.storage.base.Message` objects now have a
  ``level_tag`` attribute that contains the string representation of the
  message level.

:mod:`django.contrib.redirects`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* :class:`~django.contrib.redirects.middleware.RedirectFallbackMiddleware`
  has two new attributes
  (:attr:`~django.contrib.redirects.middleware.RedirectFallbackMiddleware.response_gone_class`
  and
  :attr:`~django.contrib.redirects.middleware.RedirectFallbackMiddleware.response_redirect_class`)
  that specify the types of :class:`~django.http.HttpResponse` instances the
  middleware returns.

:mod:`django.contrib.sessions`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The ``"django.contrib.sessions.backends.cached_db"`` session backend now
  respects :setting:`SESSION_CACHE_ALIAS`. In previous versions, it always used
  the `default` cache.

:mod:`django.contrib.sitemaps`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The :mod:`sitemap framework<django.contrib.sitemaps>` now makes use of
  :attr:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap.lastmod` to set a ``Last-Modified``
  header in the response. This makes it possible for the
  :class:`~django.middleware.http.ConditionalGetMiddleware` to handle
  conditional ``GET`` requests for sitemaps which set ``lastmod``.

:mod:`django.contrib.sites`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The new :class:`django.contrib.sites.middleware.CurrentSiteMiddleware` allows
  setting the current site on each request.

:mod:`django.contrib.staticfiles`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The :ref:`static files storage classes <staticfiles-storages>` may be
  subclassed to override the permissions that collected static files and
  directories receive by setting the
  :attr:`~django.core.files.storage.FileSystemStorage.file_permissions_mode`
  and :attr:`~django.core.files.storage.FileSystemStorage.directory_permissions_mode`
  parameters. See :djadmin:`collectstatic` for example usage.

* The :class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.CachedStaticFilesStorage`
  backend gets a sibling class called
  :class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage`
  that doesn't use the cache system at all but instead a JSON file called
  ``staticfiles.json`` for storing the mapping between the original file name
  (e.g. ``css/styles.css``) and the hashed file name (e.g.
  ``css/styles.55e7cbb9ba48.css``). The ``staticfiles.json`` file is created
  when running the :djadmin:`collectstatic` management command and should
  be a less expensive alternative for remote storages such as Amazon S3.

  See the :class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage`
  docs for more information.

* :djadmin:`findstatic` now accepts verbosity flag level 2, meaning it will
  show the relative paths of the directories it searched. See
  :djadmin:`findstatic` for example output.

:mod:`django.contrib.syndication`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The :class:`~django.utils.feedgenerator.Atom1Feed` syndication feed's
  ``updated`` element now utilizes ``updateddate`` instead of ``pubdate``,
  allowing the ``published`` element to be included in the feed (which
  relies on ``pubdate``).

Cache
~~~~~

* Access to caches configured in :setting:`CACHES` is now available via
  :data:`django.core.cache.caches`. This dict-like object provides a different
  instance per thread. It supersedes ``django.core.cache.get_cache()`` which
  is now deprecated.

* If you instantiate cache backends directly, be aware that they aren't
  thread-safe any more, as :data:`django.core.cache.caches` now yields
  different instances per thread.

* Defining the :setting:`TIMEOUT <CACHES-TIMEOUT>` argument of the
  :setting:`CACHES` setting as ``None`` will set the cache keys as
  "non-expiring" by default. Previously, it was only possible to pass
  ``timeout=None`` to the cache backend's ``set()`` method.

Cross Site Request Forgery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The :setting:`CSRF_COOKIE_AGE` setting facilitates the use of session-based
  CSRF cookies.

Email
~~~~~

* :func:`~django.core.mail.send_mail` now accepts an ``html_message``
  parameter for sending a multipart ``text/plain`` and ``text/html`` email.
* The SMTP :class:`~django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend` now accepts a
  ``timeout`` parameter.

File Storage
~~~~~~~~~~~~

* File locking on Windows previously depended on the PyWin32 package; if it
  wasn't installed, file locking failed silently. That dependency has been
  removed, and file locking is now implemented natively on both Windows
  and Unix.

File Uploads
~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The new :attr:`UploadedFile.content_type_extra
  <django.core.files.uploadedfile.UploadedFile.content_type_extra>` attribute
  contains extra parameters passed to the ``content-type`` header on a file
  upload.

* The new :setting:`FILE_UPLOAD_DIRECTORY_PERMISSIONS` setting controls
  the file system permissions of directories created during file upload, like
  :setting:`FILE_UPLOAD_PERMISSIONS` does for the files themselves.

* The :attr:`FileField.upload_to <django.db.models.FileField.upload_to>`
  attribute is now optional. If it is omitted or given ``None`` or an empty
  string, a subdirectory won't be used for storing the uploaded files.

* Uploaded files are now explicitly closed before the response is delivered to
  the client. Partially uploaded files are also closed as long as they are
  named ``file`` in the upload handler.

* :meth:`Storage.get_available_name()
  <django.core.files.storage.Storage.get_available_name>` now appends an
  underscore plus a random 7 character alphanumeric string (e.g.
  ``"_x3a1gho"``), rather than iterating through an underscore followed by a
  number (e.g. ``"_1"``, ``"_2"``, etc.) to prevent a denial-of-service attack.
  This change was also made in the 1.6.6, 1.5.9, and 1.4.14 security releases.

Forms
~~~~~

* The ``<label>`` and ``<input>`` tags rendered by
  :class:`~django.forms.RadioSelect` and
  :class:`~django.forms.CheckboxSelectMultiple` when looping over the radio
  buttons or checkboxes now include ``for`` and ``id`` attributes, respectively.
  Each radio button or checkbox includes an ``id_for_label`` attribute to
  output the element's ID.

* The ``<textarea>`` tags rendered by :class:`~django.forms.Textarea` now
  include a ``maxlength`` attribute if the :class:`~django.db.models.TextField`
  model field has a ``max_length``.

* :attr:`Field.choices<django.db.models.Field.choices>` now allows you to
  customize the "empty choice" label by including a tuple with an empty string
  or ``None`` for the key and the custom label as the value. The default blank
  option ``"----------"`` will be omitted in this case.

* :class:`~django.forms.MultiValueField` allows optional subfields by setting
  the ``require_all_fields`` argument to ``False``. The ``required`` attribute
  for each individual field will be respected, and a new ``incomplete``
  validation error will be raised when any required fields are empty.

* The :meth:`~django.forms.Form.clean` method on a form no longer needs to
  return ``self.cleaned_data``. If it does return a changed dictionary then
  that will still be used.

* After a temporary regression in Django 1.6, it's now possible again to make
  :class:`~django.forms.TypedChoiceField` ``coerce`` method return an arbitrary
  value.

* :attr:`SelectDateWidget.months
  <django.forms.SelectDateWidget.months>` can be used to
  customize the wording of the months displayed in the select widget.

* The ``min_num`` and ``validate_min`` parameters were added to
  :func:`~django.forms.formsets.formset_factory` to allow validating
  a minimum number of submitted forms.

* The metaclasses used by ``Form`` and ``ModelForm`` have been reworked to
  support more inheritance scenarios. The previous limitation that prevented
  inheriting from both ``Form`` and ``ModelForm`` simultaneously have been
  removed as long as ``ModelForm`` appears first in the MRO.

* It's now possible to remove a field from a ``Form`` when subclassing by
  setting the name to ``None``.

* It's now possible to customize the error messages for ``ModelForm``’s
  ``unique``, ``unique_for_date``, and ``unique_together`` constraints.
  In order to support ``unique_together`` or any other ``NON_FIELD_ERROR``,
  ``ModelForm`` now looks for the ``NON_FIELD_ERROR`` key in the
  ``error_messages`` dictionary of the ``ModelForm``’s inner ``Meta`` class.
  See :ref:`considerations regarding model's error_messages
  <considerations-regarding-model-errormessages>` for more details.

Internationalization
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The :attr:`django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware.response_redirect_class`
  attribute allows you to customize the redirects issued by the middleware.

* The :class:`~django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware` now stores the user's
  selected language with the session key ``_language``. This should only be
  accessed using the :data:`~django.utils.translation.LANGUAGE_SESSION_KEY`
  constant. Previously it was stored with the key ``django_language`` and the
  ``LANGUAGE_SESSION_KEY`` constant did not exist, but keys reserved for Django
  should start with an underscore. For backwards compatibility ``django_language``
  is still read from in 1.7. Sessions will be migrated to the new key
  as they are written.

* The :ttag:`blocktrans` tag now supports a ``trimmed`` option. This
  option will remove newline characters from the beginning and the end of the
  content of the ``{% blocktrans %}`` tag, replace any whitespace at the
  beginning and end of a line and merge all lines into one using a space
  character to separate them. This is quite useful for indenting the content of
  a ``{% blocktrans %}`` tag without having the indentation characters end up
  in the corresponding entry in the PO file, which makes the translation
  process easier.

* When you run :djadmin:`makemessages` from the root directory of your project,
  any extracted strings will now be automatically distributed to the proper
  app or project message file. See :ref:`how-to-create-language-files` for
  details.

* The :djadmin:`makemessages` command now always adds the ``--previous``
  command line flag to the ``msgmerge`` command, keeping previously translated
  strings in po files for fuzzy strings.

* The following settings to adjust the language cookie options were introduced:
  :setting:`LANGUAGE_COOKIE_AGE`, :setting:`LANGUAGE_COOKIE_DOMAIN`
  and :setting:`LANGUAGE_COOKIE_PATH`.

* Added :doc:`/topics/i18n/formatting` for Esperanto.

Management Commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The new :option:`--no-color` option for ``django-admin`` disables the
  colorization of management command output.

* The new :option:`dumpdata --natural-foreign` and :option:`dumpdata
  --natural-primary` options, and the new ``use_natural_foreign_keys`` and
  ``use_natural_primary_keys`` arguments for ``serializers.serialize()``, allow
  the use of natural primary keys when serializing.

* It is no longer necessary to provide the cache table name or the
  ``--database`` option for the :djadmin:`createcachetable` command.
  Django takes this information from your settings file. If you have configured
  multiple caches or multiple databases, all cache tables are created.

* The :djadmin:`runserver` command received several improvements:

  * On Linux systems, if pyinotify_ is installed, the development server will
    reload immediately when a file is changed. Previously, it polled the
    filesystem for changes every second. That caused a small delay before
    reloads and reduced battery life on laptops.

    .. _pyinotify: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyinotify

  * In addition, the development server automatically reloads when a
    translation file is updated, i.e. after running
    :djadmin:`compilemessages`.

  * All HTTP requests are logged to the console, including requests for static
    files or ``favicon.ico`` that used to be filtered out.

* Management commands can now produce syntax colored output under Windows if
  the ANSICON third-party tool is installed and active.

* :djadmin:`collectstatic` command with symlink option is now supported on
  Windows NT 6 (Windows Vista and newer).

* Initial SQL data now works better if the sqlparse_ Python library is
  installed.

  Note that it's deprecated in favor of the
  :class:`~django.db.migrations.operations.RunSQL` operation of migrations,
  which benefits from the improved behavior.

.. _sqlparse: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/sqlparse

Models
~~~~~~

* The :meth:`QuerySet.update_or_create()
  <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.update_or_create>` method was added.

* The new :attr:`~django.db.models.Options.default_permissions` model
  ``Meta`` option allows you to customize (or disable) creation of the default
  add, change, and delete permissions.

* Explicit :class:`~django.db.models.OneToOneField` for
  :ref:`multi-table-inheritance` are now discovered in abstract classes.

* It is now possible to avoid creating a backward relation for
  :class:`~django.db.models.OneToOneField` by setting its
  :attr:`~django.db.models.ForeignKey.related_name` to
  ``'+'`` or ending it with ``'+'``.

* :class:`F expressions <django.db.models.F>` support the power operator
  (``**``).

* The ``remove()`` and ``clear()`` methods of the related managers created by
  ``ForeignKey`` and ``GenericForeignKey`` now accept the ``bulk`` keyword
  argument to control whether or not to perform operations in bulk
  (i.e. using ``QuerySet.update()``). Defaults to ``True``.

* It is now possible to use ``None`` as a query value for the :lookup:`iexact`
  lookup.

* It is now possible to pass a callable as value for the attribute
  :attr:`~django.db.models.ForeignKey.limit_choices_to` when defining a
  ``ForeignKey`` or ``ManyToManyField``.

* Calling :meth:`only() <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.only>` and
  :meth:`defer() <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.defer>` on the result of
  :meth:`QuerySet.values() <django.db.models.query.QuerySet.values>` now raises
  an error (before that, it would either result in a database error or
  incorrect data).

* You can use a single list for :attr:`~django.db.models.Options.index_together`
  (rather than a list of lists) when specifying a single set of fields.

* Custom intermediate models having more than one foreign key to any of the
  models participating in a many-to-many relationship are now permitted,
  provided you explicitly specify which foreign keys should be used by setting
  the new :attr:`ManyToManyField.through_fields <django.db.models.ManyToManyField.through_fields>`
  argument.

* Assigning a model instance to a non-relation field will now throw an error.
  Previously this used to work if the field accepted integers as input as it
  took the primary key.

* Integer fields are now validated against database backend specific min and
  max values based on their :meth:`internal_type <django.db.models.Field.get_internal_type>`.
  Previously model field validation didn't prevent values out of their associated
  column data type range from being saved resulting in an integrity error.

* It is now possible to explicitly :meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.order_by`
  a relation ``_id`` field by using its attribute name.

Signals
~~~~~~~

* The ``enter`` argument was added to the
  :data:`~django.test.signals.setting_changed` signal.

* The model signals can be now be connected to using a ``str`` of the
  ``'app_label.ModelName'`` form – just like related fields – to lazily
  reference their senders.

Templates
~~~~~~~~~

* The :meth:`Context.push() <django.template.Context.push>` method now returns
  a context manager which automatically calls :meth:`pop()
  <django.template.Context.pop>` upon exiting the ``with`` statement.
  Additionally, :meth:`push() <django.template.Context.push>` now accepts
  parameters that are passed to the ``dict`` constructor used to build the new
  context level.

* The new :meth:`Context.flatten() <django.template.Context.flatten>` method
  returns a ``Context``'s stack as one flat dictionary.

* ``Context`` objects can now be compared for equality (internally, this
  uses :meth:`Context.flatten() <django.template.Context.flatten>` so the
  internal structure of each ``Context``'s stack doesn't matter as long as their
  flattened version is identical).

* The :ttag:`widthratio` template tag now accepts an ``"as"`` parameter to
  capture the result in a variable.

* The :ttag:`include` template tag will now also accept anything with a
  ``render()`` method (such as a ``Template``) as an argument. String
  arguments will be looked up using
  :func:`~django.template.loader.get_template` as always.

* It is now possible to :ttag:`include` templates recursively.

* Template objects now have an origin attribute set when
  ``TEMPLATE_DEBUG`` is ``True``. This allows template origins to be
  inspected and logged outside of the ``django.template`` infrastructure.

* ``TypeError`` exceptions are no longer silenced when raised during the
  rendering of a template.

* The following functions now accept a ``dirs`` parameter which is a list or
  tuple to override ``TEMPLATE_DIRS``:

  * :func:`django.template.loader.get_template()`
  * :func:`django.template.loader.select_template()`
  * :func:`django.shortcuts.render()`
  * ``django.shortcuts.render_to_response()``

* The :tfilter:`time` filter now accepts timezone-related :ref:`format
  specifiers <date-and-time-formatting-specifiers>` ``'e'``, ``'O'`` , ``'T'``
  and ``'Z'`` and is able to digest :ref:`time-zone-aware
  <naive_vs_aware_datetimes>` ``datetime`` instances performing the expected
  rendering.

* The :ttag:`cache` tag will now try to use the cache called
  "template_fragments" if it exists and fall back to using the default cache
  otherwise. It also now accepts an optional ``using`` keyword argument to
  control which cache it uses.

* The new :tfilter:`truncatechars_html` filter truncates a string to be no
  longer than the specified number of characters, taking HTML into account.

Requests and Responses
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The new :attr:`HttpRequest.scheme <django.http.HttpRequest.scheme>` attribute
  specifies the scheme of the request (``http`` or ``https`` normally).


* The shortcut :func:`redirect() <django.shortcuts.redirect>` now supports
  relative URLs.

* The new :class:`~django.http.JsonResponse` subclass of
  :class:`~django.http.HttpResponse` helps easily create JSON-encoded responses.

Tests
~~~~~

* :class:`~django.test.runner.DiscoverRunner` has two new attributes,
  :attr:`~django.test.runner.DiscoverRunner.test_suite` and
  :attr:`~django.test.runner.DiscoverRunner.test_runner`, which facilitate
  overriding the way tests are collected and run.

* The ``fetch_redirect_response`` argument was added to
  :meth:`~django.test.SimpleTestCase.assertRedirects`. Since the test
  client can't fetch externals URLs, this allows you to use ``assertRedirects``
  with redirects that aren't part of your Django app.

* Correct handling of scheme when making comparisons in
  :meth:`~django.test.SimpleTestCase.assertRedirects`.

* The ``secure`` argument was added to all the request methods of
  :class:`~django.test.Client`. If ``True``, the request will be made
  through HTTPS.

* :meth:`~django.test.TransactionTestCase.assertNumQueries` now prints
  out the list of executed queries if the assertion fails.

* The ``WSGIRequest`` instance generated by the test handler is now attached to
  the :attr:`django.test.Response.wsgi_request` attribute.

* The database settings for testing have been collected into a dictionary
  named :setting:`TEST <DATABASE-TEST>`.

Utilities
~~~~~~~~~

* Improved :func:`~django.utils.html.strip_tags` accuracy (but it still cannot
  guarantee an HTML-safe result, as stated in the documentation).

Validators
~~~~~~~~~~

* :class:`~django.core.validators.RegexValidator` now accepts the optional
  :attr:`~django.core.validators.RegexValidator.flags` and
  Boolean :attr:`~django.core.validators.RegexValidator.inverse_match` arguments.
  The :attr:`~django.core.validators.RegexValidator.inverse_match` attribute
  determines if the :exc:`~django.core.exceptions.ValidationError` should
  be raised when the regular expression pattern matches (``True``) or does not
  match (``False``, by default) the provided ``value``. The
  :attr:`~django.core.validators.RegexValidator.flags` attribute sets the flags
  used when compiling a regular expression string.

* :class:`~django.core.validators.URLValidator` now accepts an optional
  ``schemes`` argument which allows customization of the accepted URI schemes
  (instead of the defaults ``http(s)`` and ``ftp(s)``).

* :func:`~django.core.validators.validate_email` now accepts addresses with
  IPv6 literals, like ``example@[2001:db8::1]``, as specified in RFC 5321.

.. _backwards-incompatible-1.7:

Backwards incompatible changes in 1.7
=====================================

.. warning::

    In addition to the changes outlined in this section, be sure to review the
    :ref:`deprecation plan <deprecation-removed-in-1.7>` for any features that
    have been removed. If you haven't updated your code within the
    deprecation timeline for a given feature, its removal may appear as a
    backwards incompatible change.

``allow_syncdb`` / ``allow_migrate``
------------------------------------

While Django will still look at ``allow_syncdb`` methods even though they
should be renamed to ``allow_migrate``, there is a subtle difference in which
models get passed to these methods.

For apps with migrations, ``allow_migrate`` will now get passed
:ref:`historical models <historical-models>`, which are special versioned models
without custom attributes, methods or managers. Make sure your ``allow_migrate``
methods are only referring to fields or other items in ``model._meta``.

initial_data
------------

Apps with migrations will not load ``initial_data`` fixtures when they have
finished migrating. Apps without migrations will continue to load these fixtures
during the phase of ``migrate`` which emulates the old ``syncdb`` behavior,
but any new apps will not have this support.

Instead, you are encouraged to load initial data in migrations if you need it
(using the ``RunPython`` operation and your model classes);
this has the added advantage that your initial data will not need updating
every time you change the schema.

Additionally, like the rest of Django's old ``syncdb`` code, ``initial_data``
has been started down the deprecation path and will be removed in Django 1.9.

deconstruct() and serializability
---------------------------------

Django now requires all Field classes and all of their constructor arguments
to be serializable. If you modify the constructor signature in your custom
Field in any way, you'll need to implement a deconstruct() method;
we've expanded the custom field documentation with :ref:`instructions
on implementing this method <custom-field-deconstruct-method>`.

The requirement for all field arguments to be
:ref:`serializable <migration-serializing>` means that any custom class
instances being passed into Field constructors - things like custom Storage
subclasses, for instance - need to have a :ref:`deconstruct method defined on
them as well <custom-deconstruct-method>`, though Django provides a handy
class decorator that will work for most applications.

App-loading changes
-------------------

Start-up sequence
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Django 1.7 loads application configurations and models as soon as it starts.
While this behavior is more straightforward and is believed to be more robust,
regressions cannot be ruled out. See :ref:`applications-troubleshooting` for
solutions to some problems you may encounter.

Standalone scripts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you're using Django in a plain Python script — rather than a management
command — and you rely on the :envvar:`DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE` environment
variable, you must now explicitly initialize Django at the beginning of your
script with::

    >>> import django
    >>> django.setup()

Otherwise, you will hit an ``AppRegistryNotReady`` exception.

WSGI scripts
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Until Django 1.3, the recommended way to create a WSGI application was::

    import django.core.handlers.wsgi
    application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

In Django 1.4, support for WSGI was improved and the API changed to::

    from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
    application = get_wsgi_application()

If you're still using the former style in your WSGI script, you need to
upgrade to the latter, or you will hit an ``AppRegistryNotReady`` exception.

App registry consistency
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is no longer possible to have multiple installed applications with the same
label. In previous versions of Django, this didn't always work correctly, but
didn't crash outright either.

If you have two apps with the same label, you should create an
:class:`~django.apps.AppConfig` for one of them and override its
:class:`~django.apps.AppConfig.label` there. You should then adjust your code
wherever it references this application or its models with the old label.

It isn't possible to import the same model twice through different paths any
more. As of Django 1.6, this may happen only if you're manually putting a
directory and a subdirectory on :envvar:`PYTHONPATH`. Refer to the section on
the new project layout in the :doc:`1.4 release notes </releases/1.4>` for
migration instructions.

You should make sure that:

* All models are defined in applications that are listed in
  :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` or have an explicit
  :attr:`~django.db.models.Options.app_label`.

* Models aren't imported as a side-effect of loading their application.
  Specifically, you shouldn't import models in the root module of an
  application nor in the module that define its configuration class.

Django will enforce these requirements as of version 1.9, after a deprecation
period.

Subclassing AppCommand
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subclasses of :class:`~django.core.management.AppCommand` must now implement a
:meth:`~django.core.management.AppCommand.handle_app_config` method instead of
``handle_app()``. This method receives an :class:`~django.apps.AppConfig`
instance instead of a models module.

Introspecting applications
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` now supports application configuration classes
in addition to application modules, you should review code that accesses this
setting directly and use the app registry (:attr:`django.apps.apps`) instead.

The app registry has preserved some features of the old app cache. Even though
the app cache was a private API, obsolete methods and arguments will be
removed through a standard deprecation path, with the exception of the
following changes that take effect immediately:

* ``get_model`` raises :exc:`LookupError` instead of returning ``None`` when no
  model is found.

* The ``only_installed`` argument of ``get_model`` and ``get_models`` no
  longer exists, nor does the ``seed_cache`` argument of ``get_model``.

Management commands and order of :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`
----------------------------------------------------------

When several applications provide management commands with the same name,
Django loads the command from the application that comes first in
:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`. Previous versions loaded the command from the
application that came last.

This brings discovery of management commands in line with other parts of
Django that rely on the order of :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`, such as static
files, templates, and translations.

.. _validation-error-constructor-and-internal-storage:

``ValidationError`` constructor and internal storage
----------------------------------------------------

The behavior of the ``ValidationError`` constructor has changed when it
receives a container of errors as an argument (e.g. a ``list`` or an
``ErrorList``):

* It converts any strings it finds to instances of ``ValidationError``
  before adding them to its internal storage.

* It doesn't store the given container but rather copies its content to its
  own internal storage; previously the container itself was added to the
  ``ValidationError`` instance and used as internal storage.

This means that if you access the ``ValidationError`` internal storages, such
as ``error_list``; ``error_dict``; or the return value of
``update_error_dict()`` you may find instances of ``ValidationError`` where you
would have previously found strings.

Also if you directly assigned the return value of ``update_error_dict()``
to ``Form._errors`` you may inadvertently add `list` instances where
``ErrorList`` instances are expected. This is a problem because unlike a
simple `list`, an ``ErrorList`` knows how to handle instances of
``ValidationError``.

Most use-cases that warranted using these private APIs are now covered by
the newly introduced :meth:`Form.add_error() <django.forms.Form.add_error()>`
method::

    # Old pattern:
    try:
        # ...
    except ValidationError as e:
        self._errors = e.update_error_dict(self._errors)

    # New pattern:
    try:
        # ...
    except ValidationError as e:
        self.add_error(None, e)

If you need both Django <= 1.6 and 1.7 compatibility you can't use
:meth:`Form.add_error() <django.forms.Form.add_error()>` since it
wasn't available before Django 1.7, but you can use the following
workaround to convert any ``list`` into ``ErrorList``::

    try:
        # ...
    except ValidationError as e:
        self._errors = e.update_error_dict(self._errors)

    # Additional code to ensure ``ErrorDict`` is exclusively
    # composed of ``ErrorList`` instances.
    for field, error_list in self._errors.items():
        if not isinstance(error_list, self.error_class):
            self._errors[field] = self.error_class(error_list)

Behavior of ``LocMemCache`` regarding pickle errors
---------------------------------------------------

An inconsistency existed in previous versions of Django regarding how pickle
errors are handled by different cache backends.
``django.core.cache.backends.locmem.LocMemCache`` used to fail silently when
such an error occurs, which is inconsistent with other backends and leads to
cache-specific errors. This has been fixed in Django 1.7, see
:ticket:`21200` for more details.

Cache keys are now generated from the request's absolute URL
------------------------------------------------------------

Previous versions of Django generated cache keys using a request's path and
query string but not the scheme or host. If a Django application was serving
multiple subdomains or domains, cache keys could collide. In Django 1.7, cache
keys vary by the absolute URL of the request including scheme, host, path, and
query string. For example, the URL portion of a cache key is now generated from
``https://www.example.com/path/to/?key=val`` rather than ``/path/to/?key=val``.
The cache keys generated by Django 1.7 will be different from the keys
generated by older versions of Django. After upgrading to Django 1.7, the first
request to any previously cached URL will be a cache miss.

Passing ``None`` to ``Manager.db_manager()``
--------------------------------------------

In previous versions of Django, it was possible to use
``db_manager(using=None)`` on a model manager instance to obtain a manager
instance using default routing behavior, overriding any manually specified
database routing. In Django 1.7, a value of ``None`` passed to db_manager will
produce a router that *retains* any manually assigned database routing -- the
manager will *not* be reset. This was necessary to resolve an inconsistency in
the way routing information cascaded over joins. See :ticket:`13724` for more
details.

pytz may be required
--------------------

If your project handles datetimes before 1970 or after 2037 and Django raises
a :exc:`ValueError` when encountering them, you will have to install pytz_. You
may be affected by this problem if you use Django's time zone-related date
formats or :mod:`django.contrib.syndication`.

.. _pytz: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pytz/

``remove()`` and ``clear()`` methods of related managers
--------------------------------------------------------

The ``remove()`` and ``clear()`` methods of the related managers created by
``ForeignKey``, ``GenericForeignKey``, and ``ManyToManyField`` suffered from a
number of issues. Some operations ran multiple data modifying queries without
wrapping them in a transaction, and some operations didn't respect default
filtering when it was present (i.e. when the default manager on the related
model implemented a custom ``get_queryset()``).

Fixing the issues introduced some backward incompatible changes:

- The default implementation of ``remove()`` for ``ForeignKey`` related managers
  changed from a series of ``Model.save()`` calls to a single
  ``QuerySet.update()`` call. The change means that ``pre_save`` and
  ``post_save`` signals aren't sent anymore. You can use the ``bulk=False``
  keyword argument to revert to the previous behavior.

- The ``remove()`` and ``clear()`` methods for ``GenericForeignKey`` related
  managers now perform bulk delete. The ``Model.delete()`` method isn't called
  on each instance anymore. You can use the ``bulk=False`` keyword argument to
  revert to the previous behavior.

- The ``remove()`` and ``clear()`` methods for ``ManyToManyField`` related
  managers perform nested queries when filtering is involved, which may or
  may not be an issue depending on your database and your data itself.
  See :ref:`this note <nested-queries-performance>` for more details.

Admin login redirection strategy
--------------------------------

Historically, the Django admin site passed the request from an unauthorized or
unauthenticated user directly to the login view, without HTTP redirection. In
Django 1.7, this behavior changed to conform to a more traditional workflow
where any unauthorized request to an admin page will be redirected (by HTTP
status code 302) to the login page, with the ``next`` parameter set to the
referring path. The user will be redirected there after a successful login.

Note also that the admin login form has been updated to not contain the
``this_is_the_login_form`` field (now unused) and the ``ValidationError`` code
has been set to the more regular ``invalid_login`` key.

``select_for_update()`` requires a transaction
----------------------------------------------

Historically, queries that use
:meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.select_for_update()` could be
executed in autocommit mode, outside of a transaction. Before Django
1.6, Django's automatic transactions mode allowed this to be used to
lock records until the next write operation. Django 1.6 introduced
database-level autocommit; since then, execution in such a context
voids the effect of ``select_for_update()``. It is, therefore, assumed
now to be an error and raises an exception.

This change was made because such errors can be caused by including an
app which expects global transactions (e.g. :setting:`ATOMIC_REQUESTS
<DATABASE-ATOMIC_REQUESTS>` set to ``True``), or Django's old autocommit
behavior, in a project which runs without them; and further, such
errors may manifest as data-corruption bugs. It was also made in
Django 1.6.3.

This change may cause test failures if you use ``select_for_update()``
in a test class which is a subclass of
:class:`~django.test.TransactionTestCase` rather than
:class:`~django.test.TestCase`.

Contrib middleware removed from default ``MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES``
--------------------------------------------------------------

The :ref:`app-loading refactor <app-loading-refactor-17-release-note>`
deprecated using models from apps which are not part of the
:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` setting. This exposed an incompatibility between
the default :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` and ``MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES`` in the
global defaults (``django.conf.global_settings``). To bring these settings in
sync and prevent deprecation warnings when doing things like testing reusable
apps with minimal settings,
:class:`~django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware`,
:class:`~django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware`, and
:class:`~django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware` were removed
from the defaults. These classes will still be included in the default settings
generated by :djadmin:`startproject`. Most projects will not be affected by
this change but if you were not previously declaring the
``MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES`` in your project settings and relying on the
global default you should ensure that the new defaults are in line with your
project's needs. You should also check for any code that accesses
``django.conf.global_settings.MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES`` directly.

Miscellaneous
-------------

* The :meth:`django.core.files.uploadhandler.FileUploadHandler.new_file()`
  method is now passed an additional ``content_type_extra`` parameter. If you
  have a custom :class:`~django.core.files.uploadhandler.FileUploadHandler`
  that implements ``new_file()``, be sure it accepts this new parameter.

* :class:`ModelFormSet<django.forms.models.BaseModelFormSet>`\s no longer
  delete instances when ``save(commit=False)`` is called. See
  :attr:`~django.forms.formsets.BaseFormSet.can_delete` for instructions on how
  to manually delete objects from deleted forms.

* Loading empty fixtures emits a ``RuntimeWarning`` rather than raising
  :exc:`~django.core.management.CommandError`.

* :func:`django.contrib.staticfiles.views.serve` will now raise an
  :exc:`~django.http.Http404` exception instead of
  :exc:`~django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured` when :setting:`DEBUG`
  is ``False``. This change removes the need to conditionally add the view to
  your root URLconf, which in turn makes it safe to reverse by name. It also
  removes the ability for visitors to generate spurious HTTP 500 errors by
  requesting static files that don't exist or haven't been collected yet.

* The :meth:`django.db.models.Model.__eq__` method is now defined in a
  way where instances of a proxy model and its base model are considered
  equal when primary keys match. Previously only instances of exact same
  class were considered equal on primary key match.

* The :meth:`django.db.models.Model.__eq__` method has changed such that
  two ``Model`` instances without primary key values won't be considered
  equal (unless they are the same instance).

* The :meth:`django.db.models.Model.__hash__` method will now raise ``TypeError``
  when called on an instance without a primary key value. This is done to
  avoid mutable ``__hash__`` values in containers.

* :class:`~django.db.models.AutoField` columns in SQLite databases will now be
  created using the ``AUTOINCREMENT`` option, which guarantees monotonic
  increments. This will cause primary key numbering behavior to change on
  SQLite, becoming consistent with most other SQL databases. This will only
  apply to newly created tables. If you have a database created with an older
  version of Django, you will need to migrate it to take advantage of this
  feature. For example, you could do the following:

  #) Use :djadmin:`dumpdata` to save your data.
  #) Rename the existing database file (keep it as a backup).
  #) Run :djadmin:`migrate` to create the updated schema.
  #) Use :djadmin:`loaddata` to import the fixtures you exported in (1).

* ``django.contrib.auth.models.AbstractUser`` no longer defines a
  :meth:`~django.db.models.Model.get_absolute_url()` method. The old definition
  returned  ``"/users/%s/" % urlquote(self.username)`` which was arbitrary
  since applications may or may not define such a url in ``urlpatterns``.
  Define a ``get_absolute_url()`` method on your own custom user object or use
  :setting:`ABSOLUTE_URL_OVERRIDES` if you want a URL for your user.

* The static asset-serving functionality of the
  :class:`django.test.LiveServerTestCase` class has been simplified: Now it's
  only able to serve content already present in :setting:`STATIC_ROOT` when
  tests are run. The ability to transparently serve all the static assets
  (similarly to what one gets with :setting:`DEBUG = True <DEBUG>` at
  development-time) has been moved to a new class that lives in the
  ``staticfiles`` application (the one actually in charge of such feature):
  :class:`django.contrib.staticfiles.testing.StaticLiveServerTestCase`. In other
  words, ``LiveServerTestCase`` itself is less powerful but at the same time
  has less magic.

  Rationale behind this is removal of dependency of non-contrib code on
  contrib applications.

* The old cache URI syntax (e.g. ``"locmem://"``) is no longer supported. It
  still worked, even though it was not documented or officially supported. If
  you're still using it, please update to the current :setting:`CACHES` syntax.

* The default ordering of ``Form`` fields in case of inheritance has changed to
  follow normal Python MRO. Fields are now discovered by iterating through the
  MRO in reverse with the topmost class coming last. This only affects you if
  you relied on the default field ordering while having fields defined on both
  the current class *and* on a parent ``Form``.

* The ``required`` argument of
  :class:`~django.forms.SelectDateWidget` has been removed.
  This widget now respects the form field's ``is_required`` attribute like
  other widgets.

* ``Widget.is_hidden`` is now a read-only property, getting its value by
  introspecting the presence of ``input_type == 'hidden'``.

* :meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.select_related` now chains in the
  same way as other similar calls like ``prefetch_related``. That is,
  ``select_related('foo', 'bar')`` is equivalent to
  ``select_related('foo').select_related('bar')``. Previously the latter would
  have been equivalent to ``select_related('bar')``.

* GeoDjango dropped support for GEOS < 3.1.

* The ``init_connection_state`` method of database backends now executes in
  autocommit mode (unless you set :setting:`AUTOCOMMIT <DATABASE-AUTOCOMMIT>`
  to ``False``). If you maintain a custom database backend, you should check
  that method.

* The ``django.db.backends.BaseDatabaseFeatures.allows_primary_key_0``
  attribute has been renamed to ``allows_auto_pk_0`` to better describe it.
  It's ``True`` for all database backends included with Django except MySQL
  which does allow primary keys with value 0. It only forbids *autoincrement*
  primary keys with value 0.

* Shadowing model fields defined in a parent model has been forbidden as this
  creates ambiguity in the expected model behavior. In addition, clashing
  fields in the model inheritance hierarchy result in a system check error.
  For example, if you use multi-inheritance, you need to define custom primary
  key fields on parent models, otherwise the default ``id`` fields will clash.
  See :ref:`model-multiple-inheritance-topic` for details.

* ``django.utils.translation.parse_accept_lang_header()`` now returns
  lowercase locales, instead of the case as it was provided. As locales should
  be treated case-insensitive this allows us to speed up locale detection.

* ``django.utils.translation.get_language_from_path()`` and
  ``django.utils.translation.trans_real.get_supported_language_variant()``
  now no longer have a ``supported`` argument.

* The ``shortcut`` view in ``django.contrib.contenttypes.views`` now supports
  protocol-relative URLs (e.g. ``//example.com``).

* :class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.fields.GenericRelation` now supports an
  optional ``related_query_name`` argument. Setting ``related_query_name`` adds
  a relation from the related object back to the content type for filtering,
  ordering and other query operations.

* When running tests on PostgreSQL, the :setting:`USER` will need read access
  to the built-in ``postgres`` database. This is in lieu of the previous
  behavior of connecting to the actual non-test database.

* As part of the :doc:`System check framework </ref/checks>`, :ref:`fields,
  models, and model managers <field-checking>` all implement a ``check()``
  method that is registered with the check framework. If you have an existing
  method called ``check()`` on one of these objects, you will need to rename it.

* As noted above in the "Cache" section of "Minor Features", defining the
  :setting:`TIMEOUT <CACHES-TIMEOUT>` argument of the
  :setting:`CACHES` setting as ``None`` will set the cache keys as
  "non-expiring". Previously, with the memcache backend, a
  :setting:`TIMEOUT <CACHES-TIMEOUT>` of ``0`` would set non-expiring keys,
  but this was inconsistent with the set-and-expire (i.e. no caching) behavior
  of ``set("key", "value", timeout=0)``. If you want non-expiring keys,
  please update your settings to use ``None`` instead of ``0`` as the latter
  now designates set-and-expire in the settings as well.

* The ``sql*`` management commands now respect the ``allow_migrate()`` method
  of :setting:`DATABASE_ROUTERS`. If you have models synced to non-default
  databases, use the ``--database`` flag to get SQL for those models
  (previously they would always be included in the output).

* Decoding the query string from URLs now falls back to the ISO-8859-1 encoding
  when the input is not valid UTF-8.

* With the addition of the
  ``django.contrib.auth.middleware.SessionAuthenticationMiddleware`` to
  the default project template (pre-1.7.2 only), a database must be created
  before accessing a page using :djadmin:`runserver`.

* The addition of the ``schemes`` argument to ``URLValidator`` will appear
  as a backwards-incompatible change if you were previously using a custom
  regular expression to validate schemes. Any scheme not listed in ``schemes``
  will fail validation, even if the regular expression matches the given URL.

.. _deprecated-features-1.7:

Features deprecated in 1.7
==========================

``django.core.cache.get_cache``
-------------------------------

``django.core.cache.get_cache`` has been supplanted by
:data:`django.core.cache.caches`.

``django.utils.dictconfig``/``django.utils.importlib``
------------------------------------------------------

``django.utils.dictconfig`` and ``django.utils.importlib`` were copies of
respectively :mod:`logging.config` and :mod:`importlib` provided for Python
versions prior to 2.7. They have been deprecated.

``django.utils.module_loading.import_by_path``
----------------------------------------------

The current ``django.utils.module_loading.import_by_path`` function
catches ``AttributeError``, ``ImportError``, and ``ValueError`` exceptions,
and re-raises :exc:`~django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured`. Such
exception masking makes it needlessly hard to diagnose circular import
problems, because it makes it look like the problem comes from inside Django.
It has been deprecated in favor of
:meth:`~django.utils.module_loading.import_string`.

``django.utils.tzinfo``
-----------------------

``django.utils.tzinfo`` provided two :class:`~datetime.tzinfo` subclasses,
``LocalTimezone`` and ``FixedOffset``. They've been deprecated in favor of
more correct alternatives provided by :mod:`django.utils.timezone`,
:func:`django.utils.timezone.get_default_timezone` and
:func:`django.utils.timezone.get_fixed_timezone`.

``django.utils.unittest``
-------------------------

``django.utils.unittest`` provided uniform access to the ``unittest2`` library
on all Python versions. Since ``unittest2`` became the standard library's
:mod:`unittest` module in Python 2.7, and Django 1.7 drops support for older
Python versions, this module isn't useful anymore. It has been deprecated. Use
:mod:`unittest` instead.

``django.utils.datastructures.SortedDict``
------------------------------------------

As :class:`~collections.OrderedDict` was added to the standard library in
Python 2.7, ``SortedDict`` is no longer needed and has been deprecated.

The two additional, deprecated methods provided by ``SortedDict`` (``insert()``
and ``value_for_index()``) have been removed. If you relied on these methods to
alter structures like form fields, you should now treat these ``OrderedDict``\s
as immutable objects and override them to change their content.

For example, you might want to override ``MyFormClass.base_fields`` (although
this attribute isn't considered a public API) to change the ordering of fields
for all ``MyFormClass`` instances; or similarly, you could override
``self.fields`` from inside ``MyFormClass.__init__()``, to change the fields
for a particular form instance. For example (from Django itself)::

    PasswordChangeForm.base_fields = OrderedDict(
        (k, PasswordChangeForm.base_fields[k])
        for k in ['old_password', 'new_password1', 'new_password2']
    )

Custom SQL location for models package
--------------------------------------

Previously, if models were organized in a package (``myapp/models/``) rather
than simply ``myapp/models.py``, Django would look for initial SQL data in
``myapp/models/sql/``. This bug has been fixed so that Django
will search ``myapp/sql/`` as documented. After this issue was fixed, migrations
were added which deprecates initial SQL data. Thus, while this change still
exists, the deprecation is irrelevant as the entire feature will be removed in
Django 1.9.

Reorganization of ``django.contrib.sites``
------------------------------------------

``django.contrib.sites`` provides reduced functionality when it isn't in
:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`. The app-loading refactor adds some constraints in
that situation. As a consequence, two objects were moved, and the old
locations are deprecated:

* :class:`~django.contrib.sites.requests.RequestSite` now lives in
  ``django.contrib.sites.requests``.
* :func:`~django.contrib.sites.shortcuts.get_current_site` now lives in
  ``django.contrib.sites.shortcuts``.

``declared_fieldsets`` attribute on ``ModelAdmin``
--------------------------------------------------

``ModelAdmin.declared_fieldsets`` has been deprecated. Despite being a private
API, it will go through a regular deprecation path. This attribute was mostly
used by methods that bypassed ``ModelAdmin.get_fieldsets()`` but this was
considered a bug and has been addressed.

Reorganization of ``django.contrib.contenttypes``
-------------------------------------------------

Since ``django.contrib.contenttypes.generic`` defined both admin and model
related objects, an import of this module could trigger unexpected side effects.
As a consequence, its contents were split into :mod:`~django.contrib.contenttypes`
submodules and the ``django.contrib.contenttypes.generic`` module is deprecated:

* :class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.fields.GenericForeignKey` and
  :class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.fields.GenericRelation` now live in
  :mod:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.fields`.
* :class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.forms.BaseGenericInlineFormSet` and
  :func:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.forms.generic_inlineformset_factory` now
  live in :mod:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.forms`.
* :class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.admin.GenericInlineModelAdmin`,
  :class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.admin.GenericStackedInline` and
  :class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.admin.GenericTabularInline` now live in
  :mod:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.admin`.

``syncdb``
----------

The ``syncdb`` command has been deprecated in favor of the new :djadmin:`migrate`
command. ``migrate`` takes the same arguments as ``syncdb`` used to plus a few
more, so it's safe to just change the name you're calling and nothing else.

``util`` modules renamed to ``utils``
-------------------------------------

The following instances of ``util.py`` in the Django codebase have been renamed
to ``utils.py`` in an effort to unify all util and utils references:

* ``django.contrib.admin.util``
* ``django.contrib.gis.db.backends.util``
* ``django.db.backends.util``
* ``django.forms.util``

``get_formsets`` method on ``ModelAdmin``
-----------------------------------------

``ModelAdmin.get_formsets`` has been deprecated in favor of the new
:meth:`~django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.get_formsets_with_inlines`, in order to
better handle the case of selectively showing inlines on a ``ModelAdmin``.

``IPAddressField``
------------------

The ``django.db.models.IPAddressField`` and ``django.forms.IPAddressField``
fields have been deprecated in favor of
:class:`django.db.models.GenericIPAddressField` and
:class:`django.forms.GenericIPAddressField`.

``BaseMemcachedCache._get_memcache_timeout`` method
---------------------------------------------------

The ``BaseMemcachedCache._get_memcache_timeout()`` method has been renamed to
``get_backend_timeout()``. Despite being a private API, it will go through the
normal deprecation.

Natural key serialization options
---------------------------------

The ``--natural`` and ``-n`` options for :djadmin:`dumpdata` have been
deprecated. Use :option:`dumpdata --natural-foreign` instead.

Similarly, the ``use_natural_keys`` argument for ``serializers.serialize()``
has been deprecated. Use ``use_natural_foreign_keys`` instead.

Merging of ``POST`` and ``GET`` arguments into ``WSGIRequest.REQUEST``
----------------------------------------------------------------------

It was already strongly suggested that you use ``GET`` and ``POST`` instead of
``REQUEST``, because the former are more explicit. The property ``REQUEST`` is
deprecated and will be removed in Django 1.9.

``django.utils.datastructures.MergeDict`` class
-----------------------------------------------

``MergeDict`` exists primarily to support merging ``POST`` and ``GET``
arguments into a ``REQUEST`` property on ``WSGIRequest``. To merge
dictionaries, use ``dict.update()`` instead. The class ``MergeDict`` is
deprecated and will be removed in Django 1.9.

Language codes ``zh-cn``, ``zh-tw`` and ``fy-nl``
-------------------------------------------------

The currently used language codes for Simplified Chinese ``zh-cn``,
Traditional Chinese ``zh-tw`` and (Western) Frysian ``fy-nl`` are deprecated
and should be replaced by the language codes ``zh-hans``, ``zh-hant`` and
``fy`` respectively. If you use these language codes, you should rename the
locale directories and update your settings to reflect these changes. The
deprecated language codes will be removed in Django 1.9.

``django.utils.functional.memoize`` function
--------------------------------------------

The function ``memoize`` is deprecated and should be replaced by the
``functools.lru_cache`` decorator (available from Python 3.2 onwards).

Django ships a backport of this decorator for older Python versions and it's
available at ``django.utils.lru_cache.lru_cache``. The deprecated function will
be removed in Django 1.9.

Geo Sitemaps
------------

Google has retired support for the Geo Sitemaps format. Hence Django support
for Geo Sitemaps is deprecated and will be removed in Django 1.8.

Passing callable arguments to queryset methods
----------------------------------------------

Callable arguments for querysets were an undocumented feature that was
unreliable. It's been deprecated and will be removed in Django 1.9.

Callable arguments were evaluated when a queryset was constructed rather than
when it was evaluated, thus this feature didn't offer any benefit compared to
evaluating arguments before passing them to queryset and created confusion that
the arguments may have been evaluated at query time.

``ADMIN_FOR`` setting
---------------------

The ``ADMIN_FOR`` feature, part of the admindocs, has been removed. You can
remove the setting from your configuration at your convenience.

``SplitDateTimeWidget`` with ``DateTimeField``
----------------------------------------------

``SplitDateTimeWidget`` support in :class:`~django.forms.DateTimeField` is
deprecated, use ``SplitDateTimeWidget`` with
:class:`~django.forms.SplitDateTimeField` instead.

``validate``
------------

The ``validate`` management command is deprecated in favor of the
:djadmin:`check` command.

``django.core.management.BaseCommand``
--------------------------------------

``requires_model_validation`` is deprecated in favor of a new
``requires_system_checks`` flag. If the latter flag is missing, then the
value of the former flag is used. Defining both ``requires_system_checks`` and
``requires_model_validation`` results in an error.

The ``check()`` method has replaced the old ``validate()`` method.

``ModelAdmin`` validators
-------------------------

The ``ModelAdmin.validator_class`` and ``default_validator_class`` attributes
are deprecated in favor of the new ``checks_class`` attribute.

The ``ModelAdmin.validate()`` method is deprecated in favor of
``ModelAdmin.check()``.

The ``django.contrib.admin.validation`` module is deprecated.

``django.db.backends.DatabaseValidation.validate_field``
--------------------------------------------------------

This method is deprecated in favor of a new ``check_field`` method.
The functionality required by ``check_field()`` is the same as that provided
by ``validate_field()``, but the output format is different. Third-party database
backends needing this functionality should provide an implementation of
``check_field()``.

Loading ``ssi`` and ``url`` template tags from ``future`` library
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Django 1.3 introduced ``{% load ssi from future %}`` and
``{% load url from future %}`` syntax for forward compatibility of the
``ssi`` and :ttag:`url` template tags. This syntax is now deprecated and
will be removed in Django 1.9. You can simply remove the
``{% load ... from future %}`` tags.

``django.utils.text.javascript_quote``
--------------------------------------

``javascript_quote()`` was an undocumented function present in ``django.utils.text``.
It was used internally in the :ref:`javascript_catalog view <javascript_catalog-view>`
whose implementation was changed to make use of ``json.dumps()`` instead.
If you were relying on this function to provide safe output from untrusted
strings, you should use ``django.utils.html.escapejs`` or the
:tfilter:`escapejs` template filter.
If all you need is to generate valid JavaScript strings, you can simply use
``json.dumps()``.

``fix_ampersands`` utils method and template filter
---------------------------------------------------

The ``django.utils.html.fix_ampersands`` method and the ``fix_ampersands``
template filter are deprecated, as the escaping of ampersands is already taken care
of by Django's standard HTML escaping features. Combining this with ``fix_ampersands``
would either result in double escaping, or, if the output is assumed to be safe,
a risk of introducing XSS vulnerabilities. Along with ``fix_ampersands``,
``django.utils.html.clean_html`` is deprecated, an undocumented function that calls
``fix_ampersands``.
As this is an accelerated deprecation, ``fix_ampersands`` and ``clean_html``
will be removed in Django 1.8.

Reorganization of database test settings
----------------------------------------

All database settings with a ``TEST_`` prefix have been deprecated in favor of
entries in a :setting:`TEST <DATABASE-TEST>` dictionary in the database
settings. The old settings will be supported until Django 1.9. For backwards
compatibility with older versions of Django, you can define both versions of
the settings as long as they match.

FastCGI support
---------------

FastCGI support via the ``runfcgi`` management command will be removed in
Django 1.9. Please deploy your project using WSGI.

Moved objects in ``contrib.sites``
----------------------------------

Following the app-loading refactor, two objects in
``django.contrib.sites.models`` needed to be moved because they must be
available without importing ``django.contrib.sites.models`` when
``django.contrib.sites`` isn't installed. Import ``RequestSite`` from
``django.contrib.sites.requests`` and ``get_current_site()`` from
``django.contrib.sites.shortcuts``. The old import locations will work until
Django 1.9.

``django.forms.forms.get_declared_fields()``
--------------------------------------------

Django no longer uses this functional internally. Even though it's a private
API, it'll go through the normal deprecation cycle.

Private Query Lookup APIs
-------------------------

Private APIs ``django.db.models.sql.where.WhereNode.make_atom()`` and
``django.db.models.sql.where.Constraint`` are deprecated in favor of the new
:doc:`custom lookups API </ref/models/lookups>`.

.. _removed-features-1.7:

Features removed in 1.7
=======================

These features have reached the end of their deprecation cycle and are removed
in Django 1.7. See :ref:`deprecated-features-1.5` for details, including how to
remove usage of these features.

* ``django.utils.simplejson`` is removed.

* ``django.utils.itercompat.product`` is removed.

* INSTALLED_APPS and TEMPLATE_DIRS are no longer corrected from a plain
  string into a tuple.

* :class:`~django.http.HttpResponse`,
  :class:`~django.template.response.SimpleTemplateResponse`,
  :class:`~django.template.response.TemplateResponse`,
  ``render_to_response()``, :func:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.views.index`, and
  :func:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap` no longer take a ``mimetype``
  argument

* :class:`~django.http.HttpResponse` immediately consumes its content if it's
  an iterator.

* The ``AUTH_PROFILE_MODULE`` setting, and the ``get_profile()`` method on
  the User model are removed.

* The ``cleanup`` management command is removed.

* The ``daily_cleanup.py`` script is removed.

* :meth:`~django.db.models.query.QuerySet.select_related` no longer has a
  ``depth`` keyword argument.

* The ``get_warnings_state()``/``restore_warnings_state()``
  functions from :mod:`django.test.utils` and the ``save_warnings_state()``/
  ``restore_warnings_state()``
  :ref:`django.test.*TestCase <django-testcase-subclasses>` are removed.

* The ``check_for_test_cookie`` method in
  :class:`~django.contrib.auth.forms.AuthenticationForm` is removed.

* The version of :func:`django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm` that
  supports base36 encoded user IDs
  (``django.contrib.auth.views.password_reset_confirm_uidb36``) is removed.

* The ``django.utils.encoding.StrAndUnicode`` mix-in is removed.
